Things in History You Should Know: Wolfe Vs Montcalm

Originally published in the Meliorist. Pretty picture snagged from Wikipedia, bless their hearts.

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The thing you must remember about James Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, aside from being the two generals who were involved in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which ended in French-owned Canada being taken over by those dastardly Brits, is that they both kind of sucked. The truth is that the destiny of our nation was decided in a race to prove which of these dudes was more incompetent than the other.

First, let’s look at the broader conflict here. This battle in question took place during the French and Indian War, which was in itself a sideshow to the Seven Years’ War. Basically, the latter came because it been a full eight years since the last European war and everyone was bored. The former actually broke out before it, because, you know, colonials, and lasted from 1754 to 1763. Effectively, it was World War Beta.

Enter Montcalm and Wolfe.

Montcalm, commander of the French forces in North America since 1756, was a major general of the noble class and thus would’ve been one of those up against the wall when the Revolution came. He had a pretty miserable time in New France. Sure, he wasn’t a complete dud militarily speaking, but he missed his family, no one would give him any of the crap he needed to actually do his job, and he and the governor hated each other’s guts.

This had something to do with the fact that Governor de Vaudreuil kept pointing out that guerrilla tactics had been working out pretty well so far for both the French and Native troops. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to keep doing something that works, rather than that European stuff?

Montcalm thought this was a stupid thing to think and Governor de Vaudreuil was a stupid person for thinking it. Also, that every Canadian official sucked and was corrupt and ugly. Probably smelled, too. All in all, though, Montcalm would have probably been a better guy to hang out with that Wolfe.

The thirty-two year old, who’d been in the military since he was a pup, was a very fastidious sort of man who would inspect the lavatories to ensure that those laggardly troops had been cleaning them to a sparkly finish. He suffered from rheumatism and dysentery and all sorts of fun things, making him such an irritable prick that his subordinates wanted nothing to do with.

1759. September. The month of reckoning.

Why then? Because afterwards, the St. Lawrence would freeze up and Montcalm would have shit all to worry about until spring, aside from living through a Quebec winter. Wolfe decides that the best option was to be all sneaky-like.

This was the plot: the 4800-strong British forces would take a lovely night-time boating trip, climb up a cliff, knock out the teeny tiny garrison that was up there, and get ready to kick some ass. Sounds clever, right? It was. It also had some great, glaring flaws in it.

Such as, how did Wolfe propose to retreat if the plot went pear-shaped, given that there was a cliff and a river behind and below them? This would be a very likely conundrum to be faced with if Montcalm and his officers been on the ball with keeping a proper watch, which would have allowed them to put a kibosh on the landing party well before the entire lot of British soldiers could clamber up the hill and make ready.

Or maybe get the guy who was supposed to patrol in those parts another horse after his got nicked. Or not shift a regiment over from the north side (where our action occurs) to the east side. Or not dismiss an escapee from the attacked garrison as a crazy person. You know, stuff like that. Thus, you understand me when I say that Wolfe’s plan was ludicrous and Montcalm was just sloppy enough to make it work.

After that, given that they had the better ground and better unit cohesion – Montcalm’s tactics didn’t mesh well with the militiamen, you see – the 4,800-strong British defeated the 4,400-strong French defenders. Wolfe still got that romantic death on the battlefield he was gunning for, although probably his troops weren’t all that distressed about it. Montcalm was also wounded and died later that day, probably wishing he had never come to the stupid country to begin with.

It was all over for a French-owned Canada after the battle, even though the war technically sputtered on for another few years. Since then, the Plains of Abraham have morphed from simple farmer’s field to battlefield to political powder keg. This has included Francophones painting this as the end of the entire frickin’ world and Anglophones bestowing upon Wolfe the Custer treatment (i.e., he was the best ever guys, really). His inadequacies as a leader? Never happened!

This became especially obvious just this past year during the 250th anniversary commemoration. A re-enactment was proposed, then cancelled because of threats of violence from radical separatist groups who didn’t learn a dratted thing from the FLQ Crisis. Then there was the controversial decision to read out the FLQ Manifesto during the festivities, along with 149 other relevant documents from Quebec’s history. In both instances, the unwashed masses on both sides went wild, sending frothing letters to the editor and what have you.

I, for one, am proud to have as part of my country a province from which sprung Unibroue. Try their beers! They are very nice.

Canada's National Anthem: A Controversy!

There is a kerfuffle in regards to the proposed alteration to the lyrics of our believed national anthem. Our citizenry up in arms! Blood in the streets! Etc!

Firstly, the proposed change: "in all our sons' command" -> "dost thou in us command." It scans a bit weird, but - wait! No! Enough of this political correctness run amuck!

Well, except for the fact that "dost thou in us command" was used in the original 1908 version. And it wasn't even our national anthem until 1980 - prior to the year, there was a debate between that, God Save the Queen, and the Maple Leaf Forever. And the fact that it was changed in 1980 to add references to God.

Some got pissed about that then, with a bit more cause. Some of the some continued singing the old lyrics and the rest? They sung the new ones and most forgot that a change had been made to begin with. Certainly, our generation has come under the impression that the anthem is writ in stone and is sancrosanct.

It's not. And if it's changed, it'll mean for us a short period of adjustment before we forget there was even a change to begin with.

There are reasons to be angry with the proposed change, although it more has to do with the sentiment behind the measure than the content of the measure itself. "Women of Canada," they are saying. "Forget about the national childcare program we scrapped! Or our measures against women seeking equity! And the murdered aboriginal women! And the fact that our definition of 'women's health' doesn't include access to safe abortions! We can change three words in a symbolic gesture and that will make everything all better!"

And for that, I flip the Conservative government the bird, for that is exactly the sort of condescending nonsense that landed Sarah Palin the vice presidential nominee gig.

Things in History You Should Know: Great Vancouver

As originally published in the Meliorist.

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Britain, you may have heard, once had an impressive naval fleet and when the Europeans were taking a break from warring (which wasn’t often; they really liked a good war), Britain often put that fleet of theirs towards the purposes of filling out those maddeningly blank portions of the map. With any luck, they’d get more land. And if there’s anything Europeans loved more than warring, it was land.

George Vancouver was born in 1757 of Dutch, wealthy, but certainly not noble stock. Vancouver managed to score a coveted spot as a midshipman on James Cook’s second outing on the HMS Resolution at the age of fourteen. This is like Captain Kirk deciding that yes, he would love for you to be an officer on the Enterprise and he won’t even make you wear a red shirt and beam down to the planet’s surface.

He carried on in the navy afterwards, doing nothing really exciting. This changed after the Nootka Crisis, a little spat between Spain and Great Britain over who got to have Nootka Sound. (What, the people who lived there? Don’t be ridiculous.) Spain eventually gave up its claim over it, averting war and preventing everyone from having a good time, and so Vancouver was sent off in 1872 in his old ship, the Discovery, to go poke about in the area and do some exploring.

He did it without pissing off either the Spanish or the various native groups he came across, with the exception of an altercation up Alaska way. The bit with the Spanish is perhaps most extraordinary when you consider that they were about ready to come to blows over the region but a few short years prior.

This becomes especially clear when you look at his dealings with Bodega y Quadra, Spanish commander at Nootka Sound. He not only partied with Vancouver and his men, but he fully cooperated with his explorations. When Vancouver discovered that the area was on an impressively sized island, they were happy to write it into the charts as Quadra and Vancouver Island. I think we can all appreciate the truncation of the name in the decades afterwards.

In addition to getting along with whatever foreigners he came across, Vancouver mapped the hell out of the west coast, venturing into the Burrard Inlet and what have you. Somehow, he missed the Fraser and Columbia Rivers, despite finding a heck of a lot of other smaller rivers, but we shan’t hold that against him.

But alas, for all his accomplishments during that voyage, Vancouver managed to piss off some folk on his vessel. Important folks. Like the cousin of William Pitt, the frickin’ prime minister of Great Britain.

Thomas Pitt managed to score a berth on the Discovery despite Vancouver having a full roster of midshipmen thanks to his swanky family connections and Vancouver’s reluctance to piss off anyone of that family. Most lads who had the fortune or misfortune to get signed up with the British Navy had more sense than to fall asleep whilst on watch, break shit, do a little under the table trade with the natives and attempt to get a native girl to put out in exchange for broken barrel hoop. To be fair, being flogged a few times, placed in irons and sent back home with his tail presumably in between his legs would rankle any lad.

Vancouver and Pitt managed to get home in the same year, 1795, the former beating out the latter. Upon his own arrival, the latter set out to destroy the former, as any contrite fellow would do. This included challenging him to a duel. When Vancouver brushed him off, Pitt took the perfectly sensible action of stalking then assaulting him on the streets of London. Vancouver was legally prohibited from fighting back, but happily, he had his brother with him and said brother happily defended him until Pitt was restrained.

Years and years of traversing the world’s oceans, braving storm and scurvy on a filth-ridden wooden vessel crammed with men who haven’t bathed since time immemorial, isn’t typically good for one’s constitution. Thus it was that poor George Vancouver, his reputation in tatters, found himself on his deathbed in 1798, aged merely 41 years. It might have comforted him to know that Pitt, the little twerp, outlived him by but six years.

As for the Canadian city which bears his name? The area was once again visited by a European in 1808, in the person of Simon Fraser who managed to both find that damned river and cross the whole continent overland. Actual settlement by Europeans within what are now Vancouver city limits didn’t begin until the 1860s, thanks to the Coast Salish peoples who already lived there.

And the city itself wasn’t incorporated until 1886, after those fat cats in Ottawa decided it would be a lovely terminus point for the Canadian Pacific Railway. It had actually been known as Granville and popularly Gastown before that, but the name was changed in order to avoid association for the drunken debauchery for which Gastown was known. ‘Vancouver’ was deemed acceptable because of the nearby and better-known Vancouver Island.

Now it hosts sporting events. Huzzah.

Things in History You Should Know: Pierre Trudeau

Originally published in the dead tree version of the Meliorist, this article was deemed too hot for the internet... until now!

(Or rather, it was right before the winter break and all the staff were too drunk to care. You got to get through those essays somehow.)

December 9, 2009: Pierre Trudeau

Screw it. For what’s very probably my last article for this esteemed chronicle of news – hurrah for imminent graduation! – I’m going to piss off as many Albertans as possible. Because I will move away, and you will not find me.

That’s right. It’s Pierre Trudeau time. And I will start off by saying this: he was a better than average prime minister. If you wish to argue with me on this point, attempt to name a Tory PM that was better than him. Mulroney? Harper? Thor forbid, Diefenbaker? Sorry, Macdonald and Borden were the only awesome ones. So what did this chap do, in his multitude of years in office (1968-1979, 1980-1984, apologies to Joe Clark) to merit my relatively high opinion of him? Dude, I will tell you.

He made the world give two shits who the Canadian prime minister was. This was likely aided by Richard Nixon being the US president during a respectable chunk of his tenure, an ugly sort of man in every possible way. But even if Nixon had been a worthwhile human being, Trudeau had him bang to rights on the charm and wit front. Which is why John Lennon chose to hang out with him. (Nixon did get to talk football with Hunter S. Thompson, though.)

He rocked as Minister of Justice, which was what Lester Pearson, our nicest PM, made him in 1967. What on earth did he do in that position? Well, I’ll tell you! He legalized contraception and homosexuality, and shoved a foot in the door for the eventual legalization of abortion by making it legal to perform the act if the mother’s life was in danger. Oh, and he made it illegal for you to drive if you had one too many. All of this came from the massive Bill C-150, which also placed restrictions on harassing phone calls, gun ownership, and animal cruelty. Separate from all this, he further enabled one to leave one’s loveless sham of a marriage, should one please.

He was kind of bad ass. This was a man who just sat there calmly while separatists chucked bottles and rocks at him on the very eve of his first election as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party, while everyone went and hid like the sensible people children that they were. His successors in the party tended to exercise this trait as well, with Turner saving Diefenbaker from drowning and Chretien’s development of the Shawinigan Shake. Ignatieff must learn from these exalted examples if he is ever to become PM.

He introduced official bilingualism. Yes, this is a virtue. Whether we like to admit it or not, historically speaking, French language rights in this country – not just in Quebec, mind you – have been kicked repeatedly in the teeth. Frankly, having that bit of extra text on your cereal box or having that additional bit of a requirement if you intend to enter certain sectors of the federal bureaucracy is not an overwhelming sacrifice to redress this.

He engineered the patriation of the Constitution. It is a rather ridiculous thing that for 165 years after Confederation, we did not have the ability to tinker with our own constitution. Nay, we had to go all the way to the British Parliament and ask nicely, perhaps bringing along a tasteful gift basket with a nice selection of tea and biscuits. Regardless of the political circus that surrounded the process (Night of the Long Knives, anyone?), it was something that needed to be done if we were ever going to become independent from Britain on paper as well as in fact.

His newfangled constitution included the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights of 1960, while well-intentioned, was toothless. True, it caused the dawn of judicial activism in Canada, bringing forth such terrible thing as full abortion rights and same-sex marriage and Native land claims. (Note: the word ‘terrible’ in the last sentence is sarcastic. I can hear your hands wringing, campus Right to Lifers.) Plus, it has been argued that such activism limits democracy in this fair country. However, I would argue that human rights should not be subject to the whims of the electorate because if history has shown us anything, it’s that the electorate haven’t been too great on that count. Pity about that notwithstanding clause, though.

Oh yes, National Energy Program – the implementation of this is a legitimate gripe, no matter how well-meaning it was, although it may have sheltered Canada as a whole from the worst effects of the global recession that was all the rage at the time. And there was the whole ‘invoking the War Measure Act’ thing with the FLQ Crisis. Still, my filthy lefty self can’t help but appreciate Trudeau, ginormous faults and all.

And as a final, I’d like to say this: the brands of small ‘c’ and big ‘c’ conservatism to be found in this province are rubbish, the tar sands are rubbish too, ‘feminism’ is not a cuss word, and your wind is far too apt to cause shenanigans (such as making me feel like frickin’ Shackleton whilst out walking last weekend). But what the hell, Alberta beef is still delicious.

Farewell, all! I head now for hillier climes.